By Laura MacInnis ROME, June 3 (Reuters) - Pressures on the world's food supply are serious but should not be exaggerated, the coordinator of a U.N. task force on the food crisis said on Tuesday. "We have tried to avoid sounding too alarmist about it," John Holmes said in an interview on the sidelines of a U.N. summit on food security which has drawn world leaders to Rome. "Clearly there is a big problem. Prices have gone up enormously and this is having a dramatic effect on some groups of people in some countries," Holmes said, giving the example of Afghanistan where many basic foods have become unaffordable. "We are not trying to say that millions of people are going to starve to death tomorrow ... We do need to act quickly both to meet these immediate needs and to start the longer-term process of re-investing in agriculture." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the summit it could cost $15 billion to $20 billion a year in aid and agricultural investments to ensure people around the world get enough to eat. "It may be even more than that," said Holmes, also the United Nations' top humanitarian official. "It sounds like a lot of money, but it is not a vast amount of money when you imagine that 100 governments around the world are going to be contributing ... It is not an unattainable sum." The World Bank and aid agencies estimate soaring prices for wheat, rice and other foods may push as many as 100 million more people into hunger, on top of about 850 million who are already going hungry. Holmes called the push by the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation to work together to increase food aid to the needy and help farmers boost their crops "a step forward" representing "real progress". Efforts to stimulate agriculture are most critical in poorer countries, where output is faltering because farmers face very high costs for fertilisers and seeds, he said. "Small farmers in the developing world need to plant more now to make sure they get a better harvest this year. They need help with fertilisers and seeds, animal feed, and veterinary services so they can produce more right now," he said. "The danger is at the moment is they are planting less, because they are most affected by the cost of those inputs." (Editing by Robert Woodward)
People displaced from Abyei wait for emergency food rations distributed by the World Food Programme in Abathok in this picture made available by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) on ...
